Category Archives: Global: Sanctity of Life

Arc of the Universe: A couple of weeks ago, the Chilean government presented for discussion in Congress a bill to allow abortion in cases of rape, unviable fetus, and present or future threat to the life of the mother. Currently, Chilean laws ban abortion in all cases, although some abortifacient contraceptive methods are allowed. The bill contemplates the possibility of personal conscientious objection of healthcare providers but does not allow hospitals as a whole to reject the performance of abortions in their institutions.

Calgary Herald: We might have an entirely lawless Canada as far as assisted suicide is concerned, what Calgary lawyer Gerry Chipeur refers to as “no country for old men.” Or middle-aged women. Or possibly even young children.

Law and Religion UK: The Supreme Court agreed with Smith J that the prohibition on physician-assisted dying had the effect of forcing some individuals to take their own lives prematurely, for fear that they would be incapable of doing so when they reached the point where suffering had become intolerable.

Juicy Ecumenism: Canada’s top court has effectively overturned its nation’s laws against assisted suicide, overriding longstanding legislation of Canada’s elected representatives and a thousand years of Common Law, not to mention even more ancient understandings about human life rooted in millennia of Jewish and Christian teaching, which is no little thing. But fully self-actualized philosopher kings and queens in judicial robes may do so cavalierly, because they are the vanguard of the ever progressing radically autonomous individual, who is subject to no normative reality and may endlessly reimagine truth contingent only on need.

The Christian Institute: MSPs should be ensuring that elderly, ill and disabled people have the best quality of life for as long as possible rather than looking to legalise assisted suicide, according to the head of a disability rights consortium.

The Daily Signal: In a decision with serious international ramifications, Canada’s highest court has overturned an absolute ban on assisted suicide/euthanasia and has given Parliament one year to create a “stringently limited, carefully monitored system of exceptions.”

National Right to Life: Last week NRL News Todayreported that the Indian Supreme Court had directed major search engines such as Yahoo, Google, and Bing to no longer carry ads for pre-natal sex selection services. The justices’ lamented selective abortion.

Catholic News Agency: Despite warnings from religious leaders and scientists, British lawmakers have voted to allow a version of in-vitro fertilization that uses the DNA of three different people to conceive a baby.

National Right to Life: Canada’s Supreme Court is considering the case of Kay Carter and physician assisted suicide. As a Canadian who has been incurably ill and disabled for more than 30 years with degenerative multiple sclerosis (MS), I implore the Supreme Court not to strike down Canada’s laws prohibiting assisted suicide. The laws are there to protect vulnerable people when they are at their lowest point of life and overwhelmed by their circumstances.

The Telegraph: Scientists, naturally, like to make advances in science and the fact of mitochondrial disease being passed on by parents to their children is clearly one which science should investigate. But are three-parent embryos or three-person IVF really the way forward?

The Guardian: MPs have voted in favour of making Britain the first country in the world to permit IVF babies to be created using biological material from three different people to help prevent serious genetic diseases.

Associated Press: British lawmakers in the House of Commons voted Tuesday to allow scientists to create babies from the DNA of three people — a move that could prevent some children from inheriting potentially fatal diseases from their mothers.

The Telegraph: Last week the Church of England said it could not support a change to legislation, arguing that scientists had not proved that the child would not inherit characteristics from the donor mother.

MercatorNet: In Britain, for example, the selective aborting of female foetuses is largely hidden and both government officials and many health professionals dispute that it is even occurring. That’s partly because “gender abortions” are illegal, although some groups deny even that.

MercatorNet: The Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons is consulting on whether patients’ right of access to certain procedures, such as abortion, should trump the rights of those physicians who refuse, for reasons of conscience, to provide them. Dr. Marc Gabel, a College official, chairs the working group looking at this issue, which is drafting a new policy on “Professional Obligations and Human Rights.”

NPR: Britain is on track to become the first country in the world to legalize a controversial procedure that uses DNA from three people to produce an embryo, as a way to cut out inherited DNA that can cause serious health problems in children.

Fox News (AP): President Michelle Bachelet sent legislation to Congress on Saturday proposing to allow some abortions in Chile, a socially conservative South American nation that is among the few countries in the world that ban abortion in all circumstances.

Huffington Post UK: Following interventions by a few high profile Christians, some people are suggesting that the Church of England’s position on the ‘Assisted Dying Bill’ lacks clarity. For once, nothing could be further from the truth.

The Telegraph: Tom Mortier never paid much attention to the discussion about voluntary death in his country. “I was like just about anyone else here in Belgium: I didn’t care at all,” he said. “If people want to die, it’s probably their choice. It didn’t concern me.”

National Right to Life: The onset of multiple sclerosis is sudden. I went dead from the waist down. I could not distinguish something hot from something cold. I could not distinguish blunt from sharp. Overnight, I lost the use of my right hand, and I am right handed. My wife had to help me dress. For a time, I could not hold a pencil, and when I came to the point where I could, I scribbled like a little kid. Within a week, I had gone from the world of the able-bodied to the world of the disabled. They are distinctly different worlds, rather like two solitudes.

Asia News: For many years, not one girl was born in 70 Indian villages. Every day, 2,000 girls are killed across the country. On average, the ratio of males to females at birth is 1,000 to 914. These figures are the practical consequence of selective female abortions, a discriminatory practice that is widespread across the country.

Life News: In a landmark decision already twenty-seven years old today, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Canada’s then-existing abortion regulations were unconstitutional. While many Canadians grieve the subsequent loss of a full quarter of their generation through abortion, others celebrate this day with exuberance, calling Canadians to protect their unfettered access to abortion at any stage of the pregnancy.

BioEdge: A Dutch end-of-life clinic has been reprimanded for the third time in a year for moving the goal posts for euthanasia. The Levenseindekliniek in The Hague helped a woman to die because she complained of severe tinnitus, or ringing in the ears.

Life Site News: In the first-ever speech by a leader of the Russian Orthodox Church to the Duma, Patriarch Kirill has called on the Russian government to build on its support for the family and traditional marriage by defunding abortion in the country, with the objective of eliminating the killing of pre-born children altogether.

Reuters: An official from China’s restive far-western Xinjiang called for strict measures to prevent early marriages and high birth rates in southern parts of the region, state media said on Friday, a move likely to raise concerns among ethnic Uighurs.

Religion News Service (Reuters): Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill called on Thursday for a deep cut in the “horrifyingly high” number of abortions, which he linked to a Western rejection of moral norms.

Christian News Network: Concerns are growing as the Canadian Supreme Court is set to rule on the country’s current assisted suicide ban, which provides criminal penalties for those who take part in ending the life of another.

Life Site News: The adage goes that when it comes to social issues, the United States is at best a decade or two behind Europe. With its cathedrals collecting cobwebs, its laws enshrining all sorts of alternative sexual practices, and its widespread disregard for the sanctity of life, this once-devout home of Christendom could very well be a picture of America’s future.

First Things: The case of Frank Van Den Bleeken—the Belgian murderer and rapist who requested to be euthanized rather than spend life in prison—has provoked its fair share of comment. And rightly so, for the facts of this case are shocking.

The Washington Post: Japan’s population shrank by its largest amount on record in 2014. Roughly 1.001 million people were born and 1.269 million people died last year, leaving the country with 268,000 fewer people overall.

BBC News: A murderer serving a life sentence in a Belgian jail, who asked to be allowed to die by lethal injection, was told in September that his wish would be granted. This week the Justice Ministry reversed that decision.

Life News: A few days before Christmas, a U.K. mother of two reached out to Christian radio show program Stand Up For Truth with a plea for prayers and support. She had been notified that Child Protection Services would be contacting her because she had permitted her children to watch the pro-life documentary 180.

The Christian Institute: The UK’s highest court has overturned a decision affecting the case of two Roman Catholic midwives who had previously won the right to avoid supervising staff involved in abortions.